NBA chairman joins Pagliuca's Chelsea bid | Final bids on Thursday

The chairman of the NBA has joined one of the consortia preparing to table final takeover bids for Chelsea this week.

Sky News has learnt that Larry Tanenbaum, who also owns a host of North American sports teams, is among the investors backing Stephen Pagliuca's offer for the Stamford Bridge club.

City sources said on Monday that Mr Tanenbaum, a Canadian, was among several wealthy individuals who have agreed to back Mr Pagliuca, the private equity billionaire who has made a fortune from his career at Bain Capital.

Among the group's other co-investors are said to be John Burbank, founder of the San Francisco hedge fund Passport Capital, and Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder who was the first investor in the tech behemoth.

Mr Saverin and Raj Ganguly, two co-founders of investment firm B Capital Group, are both understood to have agreed to back Mr Pagliuca.

Last week, Sky News revealed that Bob Iger, the former Walt Disney chairman, had also been approached about joining the bid.

The Bain Capital chairman is reported to have attended Chelsea's 6-0 win at Southampton on Saturday, having travelled to the UK for talks with club executives and advisers about his offer.

Mr Pagliuca co-owns the Boston Celtics NBA team, as well as a large stake in the Italian Serie A side Atalanta, which he could be obliged to offload if he is successful with his Chelsea bid.

One source close to Mr Pagliuca's bid said that Mr Tanenbaum's work on combating antisemitism was likely to be well-received by Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner who has been hit by UK government sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The four remaining consortia plotting to replace Abramovich as Chelsea's owner must table final bids on Thursday, two days